Conventional computerized devices, such as personal computers, laptop computers, and the like, utilize graphical user interfaces in applications, enabling users to quickly provide input to the application using “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) technology. In general, using a graphical user interface, a user operates an input device such as a mouse or keyboard to manipulate graphical objects on a computer display. The graphical objects are often represented as icons, and the user can operate an input device such as a mouse to move a mouse pointer onto an icon (i.e., graphically overlapping the icon) on the graphical user interface. By depressing a mouse button, the application selects the icon, and if the user maintains the mouse button in a depressed state, the user can drag the icon across the graphical user interface. By releasing the mouse button, the icon is placed on the graphical user interface at the current position of the mouse pointer.
Using graphical user interface technology, users may interact with a wide variety of applications. Many of these applications include text-processing functionality that allows a user to create and modify text. These applications may also include text-processing functionality that checks for certain conditions in the text. These conditions typically include, for example, spelling errors and various grammar uses. Generally, a user requests the application to check for text conditions while the user is interacting with the application to create or edit the text. The text is displayed on a display screen and if the application detects a text condition, an indication of the text condition is displayed on the display screen together with the portion of text containing the condition. For example, if the text-processing functionality of the application detects a misspelled word, the application may display a wavy line directly underneath the misspelled word to indicate to the user which word is misspelled. Similarly, if the text-processing functionality of the application detects a generally undesirable grammar usage, such as passive voice, the application may highlight the text and display a window region, such as a popup window, containing text such as “passive voice” to indicate the detected condition to the user.